Thursday, December 30, 2010

"Whenever we find fault with others, whether through anger, contemptuous certainty, self-righteousness, or gossip, it is often based in fear. We may not be aware of our fears, but when we look deeply, we may discover the fear of rejection, loss of control, of unworthiness, or the fear of disconnection. But refraining alone is not enough—by itself it is just behavior modification—and it is neither healing nor transformative. Only through uncovering and consciously entering into the deep hole inside, welcoming the fear with curiosity and compassion, can we ultimately reconnect with the basic wholeness of our true nature."

Sunday, December 26, 2010

"We leave our homeland, our property and our friends. We give up the familiar ground that supports our ego, admit the helplessness of ego to control its world and secure itself. We give up our clingings to superiority and self-preservation...It means giving up searching for a home, becoming a refugee, a lonely person who must depend on himself...Fundamentally, no one can help us. If we seek to relieve our loneliness, we will be distracted from the path. Instead, we must make a relationship with loneliness until it becomes aloneness."

Monday, December 20, 2010

“I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf. Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.”

~ Patti Smith, in her acceptance speech for the 2010 National Book Awards

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

"Book buying, by extension, has become an impersonal exchange. Soulless gift cards and instant e-certificates are, of course, the only option when there is no specific book object to wrap. But giving gift cards in a long-term relationship is depressing. It's like saying, 'Here's 150 Amazon dollars. That's how much I love you. Please adjust to reflect my portion of the mortgage payment.' "

--Leah McLaren in her Globe & Mail column "How the rise of e-readers takes the fun out of giving books."

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Liz: "A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It's called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it a long with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It's one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured - the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, it's just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation."

What a Friend Said about Me: "You are funny... things go good, you are uncomfortable, things aren't cosy, you are in your element."

Reading Eat, Pray, Love at the moment, because I enjoyed the film with Julia Roberts -- and because sometimes you are just in a strange kind of mood for a book about travel and healing. Besides, I just picked it up from the library today. I was #19 on the Reservation List.

I wish you bluebirds in the springTo give your heart a song to singAnd then a kiss, but more than thisI wish you loveAnd in July a lemonadeTo cool you in some leafy gladeI wish you healthAnd more than wealthI wish you love

My breaking heart and I agreeThat you and I could never beSo with my bestMy very bestI set you free

I wish you shelter from the stormA cozy fire to keep you warmBut most of all when snowflakes fallI wish you love

My breaking heart and I agreeThat you and I could never beSo with my bestMy very bestI set you free

I wish you shelter from the stormA cozy fire to keep you warmBut most of all when snowflakes fallI wish you loveBut most of all when snowflakes fallI wish you love.

You're so mean, when you talk about yourself, you were wrong Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead So complicated, look happy, you'll make it! Filled with so much hatred...such a tired game It's enough! I've done all I can think of Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same

The whole world's scared so I swallow the fear The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer So cool in line, and we try try try, but we try too hard and it's a waste of my time Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere They dont like my jeans, they don't get my hair Exchange ourselves, and we do it all the time Why do we do that? Why do I do that?

Friday, November 19, 2010

It is good that you will soon be entering a profession that will make you independent and will put you completely on your own, in every sense. Wait patiently to see whether your innermost life feels hemmed in by the form this profession imposes. I myself consider it a very difficult and very exacting one, since it is burdened with enormous conventions and leaves very little room for a personal interpretation of its duties. But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Carrie Brownstein has a new band, Wild Flag - which is made up of Carrie Brownstein, Mary Timony, Rebecca Cole, and Janet Weiss (yes, Janet does the drums.) As she wrote on the NPR "All Songs Considered" blog:

After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise. In fact, it was writing about music for NPR — connecting with music fans and experiencing a sense of community — that made me want to write songs again. I began to feel I was in my head too much about music, too analytical. I felt an emotional tie with my readers and with the bands and songs and scenes I was writing about and sharing, but ultimately it was not the same as playing or being inside of the song.

I have no desire to play music unless I need music. And as readers of Monitor Mix might know, I have very little desire to even listen to music by players who don't seem to need it, to want it. Otherwise, what is the point? About a year ago I started to need music again, and so I called on my friends and we joined as a band.

Chemistry cannot be manufactured or forced, so WILD FLAG was not a sure thing, it was a "maybe," a "possibility." But after a handful of practice sessions, spread out over a period of months, I think we all realized that we could be greater than the sum of our parts, not four disparate puzzle pieces trying to make sense of the other, but a cohesive and dynamic whole. At least that's our hope going forward. We're playing for ourselves but, of course, we'd love it if you listened.

Using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development.

It's not just children who benefit. Adults studying new symbols, such as Chinese characters, might enhance recognition by writing the characters by hand, researchers say. Some physicians say handwriting could be a good cognitive exercise for baby boomers working to keep their minds sharp as they age.

Who would sell their soul for love?Or waste one tear on compromiseShould be easy enoughTo know a heartache in disguiseBut the heart rules the mindAnd the going gets roughPride takes the fallWhen you find that kind of love

I can't help feeling like a foolSince I lost that place insideWhere my heart knew its wayAnd my soul was ever wiseOnce innocence was lostThere was not faith enoughStill my heart held onWhen it found that kind of love

Though beauty is rare enoughStill we trustSomehow we'll find it there

With no guaranteeIt seems to meAt least it should be fair

But if it's only tears and painIsn't it still worth the costLike some sweet saving graceOr a river we must crossIf we don't understandWhat this life is made ofWe learn the truthWhen we find that kind of loveCause when innocence is lostThere is not faith enoughWe learn the truthWhen we find that kind of love

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Essay by Roger Scruton which discusses the socialization process behind online media such as Second Life, Facebook -- and of course, blogs.

In human relations, risk avoidance means the avoidance of account ability, the refusal to stand judged in another’s eyes, the refusal to come face to face with another person, to give oneself in whatever measure to him or her, and so to run the risk of rejection. Accountability is not something we should avoid; it is something we need to learn. Without it we can never acquire either the capacity to love or the virtue of justice. Other people will remain for us merely complex devices, to be negotiated in the way that animals are negotiated, for our own advantage and without opening the possibility of mutual judgment. Justice is the ability to see the other as having a claim on you, as being a free subject just as you are, and as demanding your accountability. To acquire this virtue you must learn the habit of face-to-face encounters, in which you solicit the other’s consent and cooperation rather than imposing your will. The retreat behind the screen is a way of retaining control over the encounter, while minimizing the need to acknowledge the other’s point of view. It involves setting your will outside yourself, as a feature of virtual reality, while not risking it as it must be risked, if others are truly to be encountered. To encounter another person in his freedom is to acknowledge his sovereignty and his right: it is to recognize that the developing situation is no longer within your exclusive control, but that you are caught up by it, made real and accountable in the other’s eyes by the same considerations that make him real and accountable in yours.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Michael Ruhlman talks a little about the ideas he learnt from this book: Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham. He talks about how learning to cook our food gave humans access to more calories, but most importantly, it forces us to cooperate to prepare cooked food. It made it harder for us to be jerks -- because jerks will find it harder to get cooked food.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

There is a moment before a shapehardens, a color sets.Before the fixative or heat of kiln.The letter might still be takenfrom the mailbox.The hand held back by the elbow,the word kept between the larynx pulse and the amplifying drum-skin of the room’s air.The thorax of an ant is not as narrow.The green coat on old copper weighs more. Yet something slips through it —looks around,sets out in the new direction, for other lands.Not into exile, not into hope. Simply changed.As a sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road:it cannot be after turned back from.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babiesare not starving someplace, they are starvingsomewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would notbe made so fine. The Bengal tiger would notbe fashioned so miraculously well. The poor womenat the fountain are laughing together betweenthe suffering they have known and the awfulnessin their future, smiling and laughing while somebodyin the village is very sick. There is laughterevery day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,we lessen the importance of their deprivation.We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must havethe stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthlessfurnace of this world. To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil.If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.We must admit there will be music despite everything.We stand at the prow again of a small shipanchored late at night in the tiny portlooking over to the sleeping island: the waterfrontis three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboatcomes slowly out and then goes back is truly worthall the years of sorrow that are to come.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I have wanted to read something by Louise Erdrich for a very long time. I finally picked up Shadow Tag from the library recently and I'm several chapters into the book -- but you know what? I'm in no mood to finish the book.

I am feeling a little sore about yet another book started but unfinished -- but I refuse to dwell on it. The premise of the story is the disintegrating marriage between an artist and his research scholar wife. One day, the wife discovers that the husband has been reading her diary. Sick to the core of her being, she begins to write deliberately things that are meant for his eyes, while keeping another diary in secret.

The subject of this book is too taxing on my psyche right now. There are just moments in your life when you need some lightness and hope in the things you take in. I find the characters in Shadow Tag self-centred, cruel and deceitful -- and I have no patience for that right now. I need some hope in my reading. Some joy and kindness, please -- before I lose hope in humanity?

The year I was in Dubai, I read little. Any reading I did was for work and there was little pleasure in that.

Metric's "Help I'm Alive" was one of those songs I played on a loop on my iPod nano. Something about that little plaintive voice that sang about being afraid, overwhelmed by life and the heart beating like a hammer - that resonates with me.

Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer? Beating like a hammer?Help, I'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammerHard to be soft Tough to be tender

Come take my pulse, the pace is on a runaway trainHelp, I'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammerBeating like a hammer

If you're still aliveMy regrets are fewIf my life is mineWhat shouldn't I do?I get wherever I'm goingI get whatever I needWhile my blood's still flowingAnd my heart still beats . . .Beating like a hammerBeating like a hammer

Help, I'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammerHard to be softTough to be tender

Come take my pulse, the pace is on a runaway trainHelp, I'm alive, my heart keeps Beating like a hammerBeating like a hammer

If you're still aliveMy regrets are fewIf my life is mineWhat shouldn't I do?I get wherever I'm goingI get whatever I needWhile my blood's still flowingAnd my heart still beats . . .Beating like a hammerBeating like a hammerBeating like a hammerBeating like a hammer

Monday, October 04, 2010

"When we are well with ourselves, then whatever happens, it really doesn’t matter, because we have equilibrium and stability. We don’t feel any lack of confidence. If not, we’re always on edge, waiting to see how someone reacts to us, what people say to us or think about us. Our confidence hangs on what people tell us about how we are, how we look, how we behave. When we are really in touch with ourselves, we know ourselves beyond what others may tell us. So these three qualities—a good heart, stability, and spaciousness—these are really what you could call basic human virtues."

Monday, September 27, 2010

Sometimes you hear a song - it's beautiful, and you love it, but then you put it aside and thought nothing of it after some time. Later down the road, something happens. You listen to the song again, and suddenly this very same song is all that you're playing on your iPod day after day.

This song, according to Glen Hansard, is about trying to fix something that's broken, but you can't fix it, so you wish it well and send it on it's way.

Monday, August 30, 2010

I'll be bringing the final two volumes of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy with me. It's at least an 18 hours flight, so I need something fast-paced to get my mind off the cramped space. I usually don't sleep well on the plane. This is so much agony.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

We moved to a new apartment recently and I have only just put all the books up on the bookshelves. Because I had to do it in a hurry, not all the books are where they ought to be -- not all the books by the same author are placed together, they are not arranged according to subject or genres. Just up there on the bookshelves until I can sort them out again.

Right now I seem to have books missing. I can't find Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, for instance. Either I lost the book during the move (not likely) or it's hidden somewhere.

Either way, things are not where they used to be, and not organized the way I prefer. I am a little intrigued by how uneasy this makes me feel; something so unimportant, seemingly minor, yet it feels so important: well-organized bookshelves.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Sort of how I've been feeling lately, so I decided to look up this quote:

Lost really has two disparate meanings. Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing. There are objects and people that disappear from your sight or knowledge or possesion; you lose a bracelet, a friend, the key. You still know here you are. Everything is familiar except that there is one item less, one missing element. Or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger than your knowledge of it. Either way, there is a loss of control.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

June 19th 2010 marks Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday. Since her party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide election in 1990, she has been imprisoned or placed under house arrest by the Burmese military government -- who had also refused to recognize the results of the election.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

New things are shiny and distracting for me. In case you haven't noticed, I've been playing around with the new template for this blog. It has been a while since I changed the layout. I ask indulgence as I figure my way out on the new look -- but in the event you find the layout hard to read or hurtful to the eye, please feel free to drop a note in the comments.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Geek that I am, I feel the need to tick off the list. What I don't get though -- why did they include the out-of-print Freya Stark titles? When was the last time anyone saw Beyond Euphrates in the bookstores? While an out-of-print title does not in any way loses its inherent literary value -- it does mean it's less accessible. If a book is not being read, can we still consider it "significant" in the canon?

1) A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis 2) A House in Bali, by Colin McPhee3) A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (read it during my Parisian phase)4) A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby 5) A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor 6) A Turn in the South, by V.S. Naipaul 7) A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson 8) A Winter in Arabia, by Freya Stark 9) Among the Russians, by Colin Thubron 10) An Area of Darkness, by V.S. Naipaul 11) Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger (half-way through. Thesiger's prose is as dry as the desert landscape he's describing)12) Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez 13) The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton (pretty okay)14) As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee 15) Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz 16) Balkan Ghosts, by Robert D. Kaplan 17) Beyond Euphrates, by Freya Stark 18) The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, by Eric Hansen 19) Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, by Lawrence Durrell20) Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West 21) Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin 22) Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon 23) Brazilian Adventure, by Peter Fleming 24) Chasing the Sea, by Tom Bissell 25) City of Djinns, by William Dalrymple (Dalrymple is one of my favourite travel writer. He is so funny!)26) Coasting, by Jonathan Raban 27) Coming Into the Country, by John McPhee 28) Dark Star Safari, by Paul Theroux 29) Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey 30) Down the Nile, by Rosemary Mahoney 31) Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert 32) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe 33) Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing 34) Facing the Congo, by Jeffrey Tayler 35) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson 36) Four Corners, by Kira Salak 37) Full Circle, by Michael Palin 38) Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle, by Dervla Murphy 39) Golden Earth, by Norman Lewis 40) Great Plains, by Ian Frazier 41) The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux 42) Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O’Rourke 43) Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell 44) Hunting Mister Heartbreak, by Jonathan Raban 45) In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson (never finished)46) In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (never finished the book. D.R.Y.)47) In Siberia, by Colin Thubron 48) In Trouble Again, by Redmond O’Hanlon 49) The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain 50) Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer 51) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer 52) Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman 53) Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl 54) The Lady and the Monk, by Pico Iyer 55) Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain 56) The Log From the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck 57) The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz 58) The Lost Continent, by Bill Bryson 59) Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta 60) The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto “Che” Guevara 61) The Muses Are Heard, by Truman Capote 62) No Mercy, by Redmond O’Hanlon 63) Notes From a Small Island, by Bill Bryson 64) Nothing to Declare, by Mary Morris 65) Old Glory, by Jonathan Raban 66) The Old Patagonian Express, by Paul Theroux 67) Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen 68) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard 69) The Pillars of Hercules, by Paul Theroux 70) The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart 71) Riding to the Tigris, by Freya Stark (pretty sure it's out of print)72) The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald 73) The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester 74) River Town, by Peter Hessler75) Road Fever, by Tim Cahill 76) The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron 77) Roughing It, by Mark Twain 78) Sea and Sardinia, by D.H. Lawrence 79) Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer 80) The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost 81) The Size of the World, by Jeff Greenwald 82) Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby 83) The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (maybe it's time for a re-read)84) The Soccer War, by Ryszard Kapuscinski85) The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin 86) Terra Incognita, by Sara Wheeler 87) Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue, by Paul Bowles 88) Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson 89) Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck 90) Travels With Myself and Another, by Martha Gellhorn 91) Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, by Jan Morris 92) Two Towns in Provence, by M.F.K. Fisher 93) Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes 94) Video Night in Kathmandu, by Pico Iyer 95) West With the Night, by Beryl Markham 96) When the Going was Good, by Evelyn Waugh 97) The World of Venice, by Jan Morris 98) The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard 99) Wrong About Japan, by Peter Carey 100) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

I mentioned that a friend of mine passed away earlier this year. I thought of her recently, and decided I was going to talk a little about her here.

Bunny was an ex-classmate, back when we were 17 and the most imminent things on our minds were trying not to fail our tests and getting enough sleep. Sometimes we even think about skipping classes and not getting caught for it. (Yes, back then we had the weight of the universe on our shoulders.)

We nicknamed her "Bunny" -- which might give you an idea of the kind of warm, fuzzy feelings we have for her. But most of all, we call her Bunny, because she can be something of a silly bunny at times. She was one of those clueless girls that you love in spite yourself, even as you keep pulling pranks on her relentlessly -- because she's so such an easy target.

A small group of us from the class stayed in touch. We went to each other's weddings, watched some of us become parents. We were there when Bunny met her boyfriend (later her husband) Wei, in the university. After graduation she joined a bank doing sales where she was paid well. A few years later, Bunny left that well-paying job to pursue a Masters in International Relations in Australia. When questioned about it, Bunny explained she didn't really know what International Relations was about -- it just sounded interesting.

After her Masters, Bunny worked as a teacher in a kindergarten for international students, before she went on to teach in one of the most prestigious all-girls school in the country. She never made as much money as her first job though.

When she talked about her somewhat dramatic career change, she explained: Back in her first job with the bank, you have sales targets, and the competition and pressure is immense. It's a very result-oriented field, and sometimes to close the deal, you may need to employ certain ethically questionable tactics. There's also the backstabbing between colleagues: the person sitting across from you might just steal your clients from under your nose. After a while, you start to wonder if you ought to do the same. She did not like the kind of person she was turning into.

"Money is not the most important thing," Bunny had said simply.

Some might argue if she had been a stronger person, she might have found a way to meet her sales targets without compromising her integrity -- I think that is missing the point. Bunny found herself changing into someone she didn't like. She had the self-awareness to stop before she truly lost herself. She knew what was important to her -- and was bold enough to walk away from the kind of income and lifestyle that many would find difficult to let go. Perhaps our Bunny was never as clueless as she pretended to be.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

A while ago, I was going through a period where I questioned my choices. I wondered if I should have stayed for a second year in Dubai (it would have meant more money in my bank account -- always a good thing). I wondered if I made the right choice coming back to try to "do right" by my mother. Most important of all: did I make the right choice quitting my job?

I was fretting a lot about this career uncertainty these past few months, even falling into quicksand-like moments of depression -- those mental traps that you slip into suddenly, unexpectedly -- and consumes you completely. Yet I am observing my own state of mind here and now -- and I feel fine. A little ironic perhaps, a little introspective -- but capable of a smile.

Amazing how the situation remains the same, yet our mind has such a wide spectrum of reactions.

After all the questions, there are a few things I can be sure of: Some of my friends have remarked how much better I look these days. I no longer wake up with that sense of heavy weariness that comes with waking up to a work-day. I felt stuck at my previous job. The point was getting unstuck.

So where do I go from here? Interestingly enough, I thought Montaigne might have the right idea.

Like many noblemen of his times, Michel de Montaigne had two jobs. He held a magistracy in Bordeaux for thirteen years, and he was responsible for the prosperous country estate he inherited from his father in 1568. Then in 1570, he retired as magistrate. He was thirty-seven, hardly an old man. He decided to give up his political life and retreat to a more meaningful life of introspection, reading and writing. Just like that.

Montaigne went to some length for his retreat. He converted one of the towers at his chateau into his office, and there -- set up his library with its collection of over a thousand volumes. On his 38th birthday, just because he felt like it, he had a Latin inscription painted on the wall of a side-chamber to his library. It read:

In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, anniversary of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned Virgins [the Muses], where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life now more than half run out. If the fates permit he will complete this abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquility, and leisure.

Montaigne took the advice of the ancients to heart, especially that of the Stoic philosopher, Seneca, who advised his fellow Romans to retreat from the world to better find themselves. So Montaigne retreated, and he turned his attention to observing, questioning and writing about his own experiences. He soon began working on the Essays that would seal his name in the history of literature.

I am not making claims to deathless prose. Yet, shifting one's focus to a more meditative life feels right -- more rewarding. It is still important to find gainful employment of course. One needs to live, to pay the bills -- just as Montaigne maintained his estate after he resigned from public office. But life has to be more than just politics, money, career and fame. We need to retreat -- to spend real time working inwards for something richer.

So, I have decided: I am retired. My job will support me, but is not the focus of my real life.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Just a quick update to my friends on what has been going on with my life - and the reason (or excuse) why there hasn't been many posts.

I quit my job late last year and took a break for a few months. This is the first time in 9 years that I am without a regular income. The family has also moved to a new apartment - it's smaller, and things are all new. (Imagine coming home to an apartment where you don't really remember where the light switches are) It is an understatement to say I have been treading through unfamiliar territories the past few months.

Now I am back and trying to find new employment. I am not sure if I wish to continue in the book industry - while I still love books and always will - there comes a time when you need to step away from books as a JOB to appreciate it again.

Which now begs the question of what to do next? That's a question I keep asking myself every day. Friends tell me not to fret. Things will fall into place when it is time.

I wish I possess greater wisdom to see past this. I am asking lots of questions right now - or maybe just asking the same questions over and over with no answers. Then I was at the library yesterday and found this book on display: How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts At An Answer. It's sort of a biography on Montaigne, as he lived his life and pondered. And wrote. A lot. Right now a book about a man who kept asking himself, "How to live?" feels like the right reading material for this clueless one. I have only read some essays of Montaigne's. The Complete Works of Montaigne that I have sitting at home feels a little too daunting right now. I suspect I will be dipping in from time to time only. But then again - he took a lifetime writing it. Perhaps it's the kind of book that takes a life time to read. So, it's all good.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

I was reading Amy Bloom's new collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, where she included a particular poem by Jane Hirshfield.

When Your Life Looks Backby Jane Hirshfield

When your life looks back—As it will, at itself, at you—what will it say?

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,With ten fingers and both palms,With horizontal ribs and upright spine,With its filling and emptying heart,That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.You gave it. What else could do?

Immersed in air or in water.Immersed in hunger or anger.Curious even when bored.Longing even when running away.

“What will happen next?”—the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,in the in-breaths even of weeping.Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.No back of the world existed,No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.

This, your life had said, its only pronoun.Here, your life had said, its only house.Let, your life had said, its only order.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

This is the 10-minute video of Nina Simone's "Feelings" live at Montreux Jazz Festival. It's a glimpse at a great artiste in action with all her sassy attitude. While she objected to the song in the beginning with this outburst: "I do not believe the conditions that produces a situation that demanded a song like that!... Well, c'mon, clap. Damn it. What's wrong with you?" -- it did not stop her singing as though her heart would break.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

"I love how it's always time for dinner once a day," Jane said, "no matter what human tragedies are going on: even in places where sometimes there is no dinner, as Syl would point out, there's still that time in the evening when you hunker down with your fellow humans and try to keep warm."

Maxine managed to hold back, all at once, a sharp comment about the bromides of politically correct Syl, an affection-deflecting remark about how this hand-holding was too little, too late, and a self-deprecating joke and her own dinners, which were almost always solitary, totally devoid of warm fellow humans. Instead, she briefly tightened her hand around Jane's -- she hoped not too awkwardly -- and smiled -- she hoped warmly -- then got up to assemble the sandwiches.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

1 Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over – or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I'm writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job." Publisher: "That's exactly what makes me want to stay in my job."

2 Don't write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris, dans les cafés . . . Since then I've developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity.

3 Don't be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov.

4 If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great auto­correct files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: "Niet" becomes "Nietzsche", "phoy" becomes "photography" and so on. Genius!

5 Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary.

6 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

7 Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.

8 Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.

9 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it.

10 Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to per­severance. But writing is all about perseverance. You've got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That's what writing is to me: a way of postponing the day when I won't do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.

[ Excerpts from The Guardian "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction" | Part I | Part II ]

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

"The books we can't make sense of, that knock us off-kilter, that we don't accept readily, will often be the books that matter most to the next generation. In fact, that's generally the sign of a really important book: it doesn't fit into our received expectations, it bothers us, it 'doesn't work.' Sometimes an ambitious failure is more worth having than a successful little novel that is perfectly well done."

Monday, March 29, 2010

I was reading Find Your Focus Zone earlier. It's a non-fiction title on attention. These days I find myself too easily distracted and I needed some good advice on now to regain focus on the tasks around me. But I was at the library earlier and naturally, I picked up some new books and I am now distracted by Kate Christensen's The Epicure's Lament.

Excerpted from the Anusara Yoga Grand Gathering DVD, John Friend will guide you through playful arm balances. Before you begin, make sure to warm up with Sun Salutations, gentle backbends, and a few hip opening poses.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I was messaging a new Facebook friend earlier. We started talking about irony, and being bemused by humans a lot. I told her: irony is the reason I believe there is a god; there has to be somebody out there laughing at us.

Irony of course, is that my new friend posted a Yotube video of "Dear God" before she read my message. I'm posting the Sarah McLachlan version instead - because I super puffy heart Sarah McLachlan. (I can be very single-minded when I want to be)

One wonders though, why a god would makes us humans - gifted with intelligence, resourcefulness, yet so crippled by base instincts. That's a whole theological debate there. Most of us ordinary human beings can only wonder, and maybe joke about it a little. Still, no small surprise that my new friend is also a big Terry Pratchett fan. I guess us bemused sort find a familiar chord in Pratchett's stories.

Dear God Hope you got the letter and... I pray you can make it better down here I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer But all the people that you made in your image See them starving on their feet Cause they don't get enough to eat From God I can't believe in you Dear God Sorry to disturb you but... I feel that I should be hear loud and clear We all need a big reduction In the amount of tears And all the people that you made in your image See them fighting in the street Cause they can't make opinions meet about God I can't believe in you Did you make disease and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made you? And the devil too? Dear God, Don't know if you noticed but... Your name is on a lot of quotes in this book And as crazy humans wrote it you should take a look And all the people that you made in your image Still believeing that junk is true Well I know it ain't and so do you, dear God I can't believe in I don't believe in I won't believe in heaven and hell no saints no sinners no devil as well no pearly gate no thorny crown you're always letting us humans down the wars you bring the babes you drown those lost at sea and never found and it's all the same the whole world round the hurt I see helps to compound That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax And if you're up there you'd perceive That my heart's here upon my sleeve If there's one thing I don't believe in... It's you, dear God.

Just had an urge to re-read Fight Club recently. I first read Fight Club many years ago - before the film with Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter and Edward Norton was even mentioned. I enjoyed its anarchic energy. It was the kind of book that appealed to the anarchist within me, someone who is more than a little embittered by a consumerism culture, yet so trapped within it that we appreciate anyone who imagines a way out.

I guess I am now back to that stage of my life where I find my existence has become stagnant and demanding change. To destroy everything around me so that I can make it into something better.

Our reading lists are rarely as innocent as we think they are.

PS: As you can probably tell - I am desperately trying to get back to reading and blogging about books. Trying.

Friday, January 01, 2010

2009 has not been a good year for my readings. When it was finally confirmed that I was coming back for good last September, I packed my things in a hurry. I left a lot of things behind -- a lot of books. Amazing how I acquire possession so quickly.

I started reading Mikkel Birkegaard's The Library of Shadows a few days ago. It's translated from Danish, a literary thriller about books and reading.